Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
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Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got a double dose today. Up in segment two, it's my girl Zerlina Maxwell. But first, she's a U.S. Senator representing Arizona. He was previously a U.S. Congressman. He was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a Marine infantryman. His name is Senator Ruben Gallego. How are you doing, Senator? Hey, good morning.

Good to see you. We were talking a bit in the green room about my friend Carrie Lake. You defeated her in the election in 2024. Soundly, yeah. Yeah. Bad news for the voice of America. Maybe good news for the Senate. I wanted to ask you about that, your point about solidly, because there were several Democrats that won.

in states where Trump won. But like, if you look at the data, it was mostly because those people like voted for Trump and then went home. They're Trump only voters. Your state was the one example that was different. You had about a hundred thousand more votes than Kamala Harris. Um,

And so I do think that your case is kind of an interesting one to study. So I'm wondering if you've reflected on that, if you have any theories of the case, was it something about you, something about Carrie, something about Arizona? It was a combination of a lot of things. Like, look, we ran a very,

retail-oriented campaign to begin with. We literally were going to baseball games, putting together boxing watch parties, rodeos, reaching out to Latino men, talking to everyone, talking to Republicans, going to rural Arizona. I also think we actually were talking about Arizona and the politics of Arizona, but what was happening there in a realistic manner. We were talking about the cost of everything going up and how we need to fix that. And that is a problem. And I think that was something that a lot of

Arizona's appreciated because I think they were hearing from some campaigns like, no, things are good. I'm like, no, they're not. But we were also very serious about the border. And we talked about the border in a very serious Arizona way, right, where we want more border patrol. We want bad people to get deported. We want immigration reform. We want to protect DREAMers. And we want trade to keep continuing because that's really important to our business in Arizona versus someone like Carrie Lake who just –

talked about the border, what like an East Coast Republican conservative thinks the border is in Arizona, right? She would say that, you know, the cartels own the border, the Arizona border. Now, I'm sure on the Mexican side, that does happen. But you're telling people, police chiefs in Nogales, in San Luis, U.S. citizens, that they're essentially controlled by cartels when they're trying to bring in business or trying to start their families, everything else like that. And then she would go to the border,

go to the border wall as if it was like, you know, the Great Wall in Jerusalem. And she put her hands up on the border wall while wearing a pistol, while packing a pistol and put this on a commercial. Like,

In Arizona, we literally send our teenage kids to Mexico for spring break, right? We cross that border every day. So when people started seeing Kayleigh talking about the border while she was wearing a weapon on her hip, no one could understand what she was trying to do. It didn't really match reality. And at the end of the day, that's why...

You know, if you look at the exit polling, more people trusted me on the border than they trusted Kerry Lake. That didn't happen anywhere else in the country when it comes to Democrats running for Senate. That's interesting. The immigration politics of this, there's a buzzy article in the New York Times by David Leonhardt this week where all of the, you know, all the coastal libs.

They're like, whoa, this is interesting. Like they're just learning about something you've been working on. And he wrote about Denmark and met Fredrickson, who's kind of the center left, the pretty left, really. She'd be left, left for America, but center left for Europe leader in Denmark and how they the key difference between Denmark and these other countries in Europe is that they have taken the immigration challenge very seriously and reduced, you know, immigration levels. I'm wondering what your kind of thoughts are, if there are any lessons from you and from from her just broadly.

There are some lessons. I mean, we're not we're not, you know, exactly analogous to to Denmark. Our immigration is different. Our assimilation server. There's a lot of things here. But the fact that Democrats didn't take the border serious for enough in the eyes of voters deteriorated our ability to talk to working class people and work for working class people. We are now out of power.

And, you know, the fact that we hesitated shutting down the border as much as possible when we had hundreds of thousands of people coming to seek asylum. And, you know, when you talk to Democrats, and it's unfortunate, and some, not all Democrats, but because most Democrats actually have a very normal position of

On the border, it's actually our kind of thought leaders and liberal groups that actually are out of the norm with Democrats. Most Democrats, normal Democrats, you know, especially Latino Democrats would tell you, I want legal immigration. I want dreamers to be U.S. citizens. I want people that have been here forever that haven't committed a crime to have an opportunity to become U.S. citizens. I don't want to see 100,000 people showing up at the border and demanding asylum.

Yeah. The thing that we messed up and the Democrats, you know, instead of saying that when when there was attempts to do that, there was huge pushback. I remember one thing. Do you remember when Kamala Harris said, don't come here? Don't come here. Yeah. Do not do not come. Do not come. She got blasted by liberal groups for that. And that was the actual right attitude to have.

And so because of that, what did we end up doing? We ended up losing. The Republicans have a trifecta. They're about to cut Medicaid. They're going to gut the poor so they could feed Elon Musk and all his rich buddies because we couldn't get this one aspect down correct because we were worried about this very small niche group of people that don't even represent the working class Democratic, average work class Democratic vote. So we have to figure out what do we want as Democrats?

Because we can't have it all. We can't have a very, very open border ideology, open immigration ideology, and then also want working class policies to exist and all these other issues. We have to say, you know what? We're going to be hard when it comes to certain border crossings. We don't want to see 100,000 people coming to the border. We don't think it's fair that they're abusing the sound system. We do want immigration reform. And guess what? We also want

higher standard of living for Americans. We want, you know, a living wage for Americans. We want to make sure Medicaid is safe. We want to make sure we actually have an opportunity to live and retire and truly, you know, live the American dream. But we can't have it all because it just doesn't work. That voter does not exist.

I want to get back to the budget and the Elon stuff, but just one more thing on this immigration. How do you navigate this now? I know. Okay. So that's all looking back and now you're going forward. Trump's going to do some stuff that I don't probably ought to step for me and you on policy on immigration, but like, what, where do you go after like the sanctuary city stuff? I, you know, it's probably gonna be pretty popular on the other hand.

you know, we're sending Christian refugees from Iran to like camps in Panama. That's, you know, we're raiding Puerto Rican restaurants. How do you fight this fight now? The way you fight it is you talk about it. Like you don't want to replace chaos on the border with chaos in our streets. And that's what,

Trump is doing, right? Now he's like grabbing people. Supposedly we started with violent criminals and now because they're, incidentally, they can't, they're hard to find and the numbers they were talking about are overexaggerated. Now they're just trying to find anybody and you're creating chaos, the whole thing. And it's, it's inhumane when it comes to Victoria city. Well,

Look, I'll be honest. Sanctuary cities are dumb. It's a dumb idea. It's a dumb concept, right? And any city that has sanctuary, you should get rid of it and replace it with a real sane process, which is, you know, if you are a person who is illegally in this country and you are reporting a crime, we will not ask your stats. That's all you have to do, right? That's what the aim of sanctuary cities was at the beginning of this. But also...

The Republican position saying we're going to gut and take away federal funds with sanctuary cities is also dumb because you're essentially punishing U.S. citizens for policy decisions, and you're letting the government, big government, decide what is a sanctuary city. It's not like some cities have this label they just stamp, right? Right.

Donald Trump and his cronies and likely Elon Musk are going to decide what is a sanctuary city so they could go and they could take out those federal funds from those cities. And guess where that money is going to end up going? Right back to Elon Musk and his cronies so they could have more and more money. Yeah, so that takes us to the budget. So the House Republicans passed last night a non-binding budget outline essentially by one vote.

The outline would slash Medicaid, balloon the debt, would reduce taxes for billionaires and corporations. Americans would get fucked. I guess it's only going to get tougher for them from here. But like, how do you think the Democrats on the Hill should be kind of responding to them as they try to muddle through this?

Well, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to do a save Medicaid town halls throughout Arizona, especially in rural Arizona, because 30% of Arizonans are on Medicaid. If Medicaid expansion goes away, the rural hospitals will shut down first. As a matter of fact, they most likely will shut down because the urban hospitals will find ways to save, to bring money in, whatever it is.

rural Arizona will be screwed the most. If you have an emergency, you're going to have to get key load to a trauma center. And I know this because when I originally wrote the Medicaid expansion law in Arizona back in 2013, I

The reason we were able to get Republicans to vote for in Arizona is because rural hospitals were about to shut down. And the nearest hospitals for some places were going to be either three-hour drives or 45-minute flights. And so what we need to do is bring this D.C.-Medicaid conversation, and we need to bring it home. And we need to remind people what this means. They're not going after Medicaid because there's waste, fraud, and abuse. They're going after Medicaid because it's the largest amount of money that they could get

That's not Medicare so far, but it doesn't mean they won't go after Medicare and it's not military spending, but it's attacking poor people. So Elon Musk and his buddies can have their tax cuts. Like that's what it is. It's straight up wealth transfer from the poorest of Americans to

to the richest, richest of Americans who don't need it, but they're going to cover it up because they know they have so much shame about what they're doing. And again, this will cause problems. This will have hospitals closing down. This is doctors leaving rural communities. These are people dying because you just don't have any kind of insurance. And we're all doing it because, again, somehow the ultra, ultra rich are

Need another tax cut, I guess. I hear you on getting out of DC, but one DC process question. Should you guys even...

entertain negotiations with these guys on the budget as long as Elon is illegally ransacking the government? I guess I don't even understand what the rationale would be for you guys to negotiate with them right now. First of all, we shouldn't be negotiating yet because this is the Republicans' responsibility to keep the government open. Right. When they can't keep the government open, then they could come talk to us. But right now...

hey, they just passed a budget resolution on their own. There's a budget resolution in the Senate. Clearly, they can pass stuff. So it's on them to keep government open. Once they fail, then we could then come talk to us. But in the meantime, like this is their this is on that. This is entirely on that. This is their government. They own it. They break it when they want to talk. Then we'll talk. But it's not my responsibility. It's not the Democrats. It's a Republican responsibility to keep the government open. You may need to talk to a couple of your colleagues about that. But we're we're aligned.

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The veterans, I want to talk about your veteran. I want to talk about the treatment of veterans. There's only 6,000 have been fired across the federal government during this Doge purge. We have had some like 22-year-old Berkeley dropout tech like vapers who've gotten jobs. So it's not like we've totally fired everybody. A couple of people have gotten jobs. 6,000 veterans have lost jobs. We got Andrew Lennox.

One example news that I just saw today. He was a Marine, yeah. Yeah, right. He was working at the Department of Veterans Affairs, 10-year Marine, infantryman, lost his job. Wondering what your take is on all this. You know, my take is actually more personal. Like my friends that I serve in the war with, some Trump supporters actually, are losing jobs, are threatened to lose jobs, are having to write reports, what they did last week, five

five things for their job, I guess, whatever that stupid Elon Musk thing was. TPS report. Yeah, TPS report. The facts cover. But the other thing, though, is that, you know, it's not just that. Like, this is the most anti-veteran administration that this country has ever seen, right? 30% of the federal workforce are veterans, right?

And so when you're arbitrarily cutting people, you're cutting veterans. And there's nothing more important, especially to returning veterans, to avoid severe cases of PTSD, to avoid homelessness. It's to get a job. If you get a job right away, the likelihood of you ending up in the streets are very, very slim. And one of the things I saw when I got back from the war, I was an infantryman too, I

My guys and I saw, unfortunately, way too much combat. Those of us that were able to get jobs right away adjusted better. We still have PTSD, a lot of us, and you could have a job just because I know there's a lot of stigma out there. You could have a job. You could be a really well-adjusted person. You could have a great career and still have PTSD. But again, it always helps to at least start somewhere. Now,

What else are we seeing? Veteran crisis hotlines were randomly fired, right? This is something we've been working on as Democrats and Republicans for years. For people to know, if you call this number at any time, someone's going to talk to you so we can help you out. And Vapor and Big Butts and Big Balls Boys, all those Elon Musk guys, I don't know what their names are, arbitrarily fired these guys because they don't know any better. Well, they're veterans of the meme wars. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.

I'm sure they got carpal tunnel syndrome or whatever, because they know nothing because they're, they're little boys and they think they know everything because they're, they worked in Silicon Valley. They probably just were looking at a line item and didn't, you know, actually look into what that line item actually means. Like, well, you know, that is a, someone who is, you know, on the phone at home. I'll give you another good example.

When it comes to remote working, a lot of veterans do remote work. Why? Well, some of them because they're married to other military personnel and it's easier for them to work remotely and find gainful employment

where they are because a lot of times in these areas, there's not much employment for spouses. Some of them actually have disabilities. By working from home, it allows them to actually be gainfully employed. Now, if they want to, this is another example from one of the guys I serve with, if he wants to get state employment and stay at home, now he has to go to his boss and

And not just say, hey, I have a disability. I have a disability rating. He has to explain to his boss exactly what his disability is, which is PTSD, unfortunately. And he's going to have to go into detail with that. And every time he either gets a new boss or gets promoted, he's going to have to go through that again, telling a stranger his personal health story in order for him to get dispensation to be able to work from home.

And the other funny part about that, it's actually not funny, is that I was talking to him. He told me that even if he goes back to work, he doesn't have a desk because they're calling everybody back. And so he's in this catch-22. So he is actually now...

Going back to work, he is doing a 75 mile commute every day there and back in order for him to keep his job. And it's going to affect him mentally. And then this is a man that served in combat, very difficult, very difficult combat. And all he wants to do is continue working for the government. He's done great work for the government now for 10 years. And if he messes up, they're going to get rid of him because he's just a line item to these people.

you know, tech boys. That's efficiency in action there. 75 mile drive, then not having a desk. And my colleague, Will Selva wrote this morning, uh,

He's an Afghan veteran, and he's kind of writing about the same issues that you're talking about, but saying the Democrats have struggled to learn how to talk to veterans. I have struggled to talk to veterans, at least in the kind of like post post fallout from all these wars. Yes. I don't know why. I don't have that problem. But yeah, I agree. I think it's weird that we do. You do agree with that. I mean, he wrote that the veterans exit polls. So this is going to be off a little bit, but said that that 30 percent.

went to Trump over Harris. And that's a wide margin. Like, what do you think explains all that? That wasn't always true. I mean, if you go back to the Kerry and even early Obama, you're talking about the Iraq war and Democrats, I felt like we're much more in tune with veterans issues. Like, what do you think is happening? I think number one, economy. Let's

go right there veterans are working class this last go around you know and i went to a lot of american legion halls and met with a lot of a lot of veterans they were complaining first about the economy these young veterans can't buy homes uh even though they have you know access to the va home loan you know jobs aren't aren't going as well for them very pissed off about the border situation so that's right there i think also it was a total lie and

And we know it. And, you know, I try calling it out that, you know, Trump was the anti-war president. Clearly, that wasn't true. It's never been true. But, you know, they bought into it because, you know, it's something they actually do care about. And I also think that, like, where we are strong with veterans, we don't emphasize as much as we did. Like the president and the vice president passed the PACT Act.

That was huge. Yeah. For someone like me, I live next to a burn pit for one month and I, some of my guys have already died due to burn pit disease. It's awful. But if it wasn't for Democrats, that doesn't pass. And remember the burn pill decision had been around for a long time. It wasn't until we finally got the trifecta that we overrode the Republicans and, and pass it. And, and I think the, the one thing that the Biden Harris team did not do is just really, really talk about that like all the time. Right.

And the fact that we just don't own our big wins really, really matters. And that would have been a big one. Yeah, that takes me to kind of the other thing I want to talk about. There's some frustration out there, I think, among Democratic grassroots, anti-Trump folks in our camp, the anti-Trump coalition broadly. The Democrats in this first five weeks have not been turning up the temperature as high as they can.

on Trump out of power. I'm wondering what you think about that. Like, it does feel like there's some communicate, you know, because it, I think both proactive communication, like you're talking about the pact act, but also challenging these guys and drawing attention and not like seeding the, the battlefield to them on, on what they're doing. What, what, what do you think about that? What could you guys be doing different?

Well, I think first of all, you got to, before you get into the battlefield, you got to prepare the battlefield. And, you know, I think a lot of groups and, you know, on the left and the liberal groups are just in base time. It's like, like go in and fight them. Okay, great. The problem is like for the first five weeks, the American public was not there. So you're going to go fight and you're going to have 30% of the people behind you. Right. Number two, what are you fighting? Right. So what we need to do is be fighting for freedom.

People don't understand that nothing is changing. Actually, things are getting worse. So instead of us talking about USAID, we should be talking about the fact that this president is causing chaos and egg prices are going up. This president is causing chaos and the cost of housing has not gone down.

Everything that he is doing is going to increase the cost of care, health care, gut Medicaid to give Elon Musk and his rich crony friends money. Right. That's the message that actually wins. I think a lot of our friends and allies and I get it. I mean, I respect them and I feel like, you know, for them because, you know, their heart is in the right place. I think they want us to be fighting Trump.

But if you don't have the public with you, you're not going to be there. Polling shows right now, by the way, the thing that people are most unhappy about Donald Trump is? No. Number one is that they don't believe he's doing enough to bring down the cost of living. Yeah. Right. Number two is Elon. People are more upset about Elon than Donald Trump.

And so if you could actually communicate that, bring it home and bring everything home, then that's how you actually have more success. Because when we first got here, when we first got in, the American public, including Democrats, by the way, if you pull them said that we want to give an opportunity to work with Donald Trump. If we had just come in and guns a blazing, I think we would actually have turned off a lot of potential voters. And now I think people are seeing that.

the consequences of Donald Trump. And I think also now that we're getting closer

And closer to them seeing the real chaos that's going to come with a CR and with reconciliation, this is when we have to start turning up the heat. Like, for example, I'm going to have, I already said this, I'm having, you know, save Medicaid town halls in Arizona. This is now, this is the timing for it. What about my theory that you got to play a little bit more on Trump's turf? I mean, there's this notion that like, oh, you got to, I'm here, I hear you. You should talk about the economy. You should talk about Medicaid. You should talk about eggs.

But like Elon, you know, the shadow president has multiple baby mamas tweeting about how he's a deadbeat dad right now while he's while he's firing veterans and and also forcing the government to play for armored electric vehicles that nobody wants. I don't know, man, if that was happening on the other side, I think Trump would be talking about it. I guess, you know what I mean? Like, but Trump, Trump and them have a better media ecosystem than we do. But we should be talking about Donald Trump allowing Elon Musk.

to like illegally procure vehicles to make him rich. Right. So like that's money that they're taking illegally. They went back and legally changed a line on contract from $400,000 was signed under Biden, made it $400 million and then backdated it to make it look, it was Biden. I mean, if in any other administration, people are going to jail, but more importantly, we have to remind people that this is Elon Musk.

using government to enrich themselves while he is gutting Medicaid, while the cost of eggs are up. Listen, I don't think anyone gives a care about baby mamas unless the baby mamas are helping bring down the cost. So like, let's get to focus. Like, it's just not going to happen. All right. You don't have to talk about it. I might talk about it. You can, yeah.

You know, that's a broad internet out there. We have so many ways to do this. Like not everyone has to be on the same page. Like, yes, like for, for some of our allies. Yeah. If you want to go after the baby mamas, go after the baby mamas. Like that's like, it doesn't mean I'm not going after the baby mamas. I'm on the side of the baby mamas. I'm going after Elon for fucking over the baby mamas. But again, like that's that there's nothing wrong. Like the idea that we all have to have a hundred percent uniform alignment is also incorrect. I don't think we should be faulting our friends, our activist friends, our friends on the left, our, our,

normie democratic friends are like attacking on all these other fronts that's fine like it's fine we all should be doing whatever we can right now i need to talk to you briefly about crypto you're the ranking member of the digital assets committee i think that you're well i guess i'll let you speak for yourself on your view on crypto i'm like apoplectic about what's happening with crypto and i think there's i don't think people understand the degree to the scam that's being run like between the trump coin

tether yeah tether is this so-called stable coin that people use for money laundering terror financing sanctions of asia north korea is using it to get money howard lutnik our secretary of commerce is like a key player not anymore to divest but his kids are now in tether trump is this coin i mean like there's these scams are unbelievable you would not allow these skins in any other industries so like where are you at how do you balance like credible crypto with investigating these guys

Yeah, there's no regulation. So what we need to do is regulate out these scams, right? Because these scams are problematic. They are used for, like you said, illegal transactions. A lot of them are just pump and dump scams or anything else like that. Versus there are some legal and not legal because they're all legal until we put some regulations together. Legitimate cryptocurrency, right? And we need to kind of set down the rules of the road.

So that way it's not abused. You're only bringing in and validating really the real crypto assets versus allowing anybody to put up a meme coin and then selling it and people being taken. Right. But how are they going to regulate this when the fox is in charge of the hen house here? I mean, Trump is running one of the biggest scams out there. And like now he's appointing people. Because there is no regulation. Yeah. Yeah. That's a problem. Look, you have to regulate like you would regulate anything else you sell and trade. Right.

And you have to make sure that the people that are doing it, number one, aren't going to be able, again, to take advantage of consumers, that it will still allow companies to innovate. Tether's not even based in the United States, for example. So we want to be able to bring this back, regulate it,

make it transparent. And that way we're basically pushing out the bad scams and only, you know, regulating the, what we have here. That is what we consider more legitimate and more transparent, much like anything else, like how we regulate banks, right? You know, you can't just start a bank,

and start taking money in the United States without going through certain regulations. It's the same thing we should be doing with this type of crypto assets. Setting down the rules of the road so it's transparent. So when there are abuses, we actually have a way to actually go after the abusers and recover the money of the people that have been scammed. Finally, we're going to close. Dems are struggling with bros. A lot of talk about this. So Dems, come on. I have a bro talk segment. I want to see how you guys can handle it. So we have a quiz for you. Santa Ruben Gallego.

How bro are you? Can you name one MMA fighter? I'm a boxing guy. I don't actually do it. Okay, name me some boxers. Well, I mean, MMA fighters, I mean, Henry Cejudo from Arizona. Boxers, the current one I'm really into, David Benavides. And he should eventually go against Canelo for the championship fight. But David is, it was just actually his match last week.

Do you ever do any gambling on boxing? Is boxing gambling legal in Arizona? I'm sure in Vegas it is, but I play blackjack. I don't do sports gaming. Do you hit on 16? Well, it depends what the dealer is showing. Okay. If he's got a bus card, no.

Right. All right. That's good. So, all right. We have a blackjack strategy. We can name it. Is that a blackjack strategy? Do you know what Zin is? I do know what Zin is. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What is Zin? Zin is a nicotine pouch. Basically, dip is what we used to call in the Marine Corps. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you think that bros that want to have coffee flavored Zen, do you think they should be allowed to? Or do you think that the government should regulate that? I mean, like we should regulate how we regulate like, you know, spit tobacco. But other than that, no, I don't think we should be like banning people from from having Zen using Zen.

Finally, I just pulled up the Nelk Boys Twitter feed. Here's their most recent tweet. Aiden Ross goes in on Kendrick versus Drake beef and reveals his relationship with Baron Trump. Baron misspelled. Can you translate that sentence? Do you know what happened in this? Aiden Ross goes in on Kendrick versus Drake beef.

I don't know who Aiden Ross is, but I mean, the Kendrick and Drake drama is awesome, by the way. And so his put down at the Super Bowl is probably the ultimate diss in the history of this country. You know, I'm on team Kendrick. Definitely. You have to be. Barron Trump, I'm assuming, took a side or probably tried to flip a freaking mean coin on it. But if it's Barron Trump, I'm assuming he actually took Drake's side, which would be disgusting. Because I think Drake is the loser in this in his whole thing. And he is definitely not like us.

Senator Ruben Gallego, a wonderful way to end. Please come back to the podcast. Thank you for joining and we'll be seeing you soon. Gracias. Bye. All right. Up next, Alina Maxwell.

All right, guys, we are back with Zerlina Maxwell. She's a political analyst, host of Mornings with Zerlina on SiriusXM. She has a new sub stack called the Inner Work Dispatch, which is about working on your mental health. It's something that I'm working on and doing a poor job of. So we'll get to that at the end. But how you doing, girl? Hey, I'm hanging in there. Like I say to most people, I am trying to stay sane. That's it. How's that going so far?

I'm sane. You know, I'm sane despite all of the reasons why I shouldn't be, I think. All right. I don't know. I think I'm teetering, but we'll get to that at the end. We've got our first cabinet meeting today. Big news. Exciting news. We're adding people to the cabinet. There's a bonus person that is there. The world's richest man, a South African immigrant, Elon Musk, is going to be at the cabinet meeting today.

Trump is just doesn't give a F about this. And it's like, interesting. There was a period of time where people were all like, Oh, these guys are going to be fighting. There's going to be tension. I don't know. I think he kind of loves it. But what's your take on, on what's going on with that?

Well, I think he's going to love it until the utility of having Elon Musk there goes away. Right. So up until the point where it, somebody explains to him that this is actually hurting his polling or his popularity. I think he loves it because Elon Musk gets all the smoke. He gets all of the heat and,

from the public and all of the things that the administration is doing, people are going to blame Elon Musk basically at this point. And I think it's a little bit nuts. Like sometimes I have to take a step back and I'm like,

The George Soros comparison, if like a Democratic president brought George Soros to a cabinet meeting or like had a, you know, press a bill in the Oval Office with a left-leaning billionaire, you know, how would that be taken by the American public? But I don't even think that's actually helpful because I think that what we need to start saying is the richest man in the world is destroying our democracy and cutting programs that benefit regular people

so that he can have more money. And he already has more money than everybody on the planet Earth.

So imagine you have somebody with more money than all of us taking away health insurance, food, actual programs that people need to survive so that he can be even richer. And that's what's happening. I mean, you have him in the in the cabinet meeting. You had him in the Oval Office. He's been elected and voted on by zero people. He's been confirmed by no Senate.

And yet he's basically the co-president. Like, where's J.D. Vance? I don't know. He's tweeting. Oh, yeah. He sent a tweet yesterday about how Donald Trump chooses his words carefully. And that's why people that don't like him, you know, the whole thing is just it's like J.D. Vance is just so ridiculous. I'm interested in your take on this, like using your strategist hat, too. Like, do people believe that he wants more money? Like, it's something that I've been working through. Like, what is the right way to talk about this? Like, maybe you convince people he wants to be the first trillionaire.

Maybe he wants to be the first trillion. I don't know. Or maybe it's like not actually about money. And what Elon Musk is doing is he wants total control and he wants to be an unelected autocrat that is in charge of you. And he does not believe that you have self-determination. He does not believe that people should have a right to choose, you know, what they want for their own government life. Like he thinks that he should be in charge because he thinks he's the smartest person in the world. I don't know. Maybe that's like, what do you think lands with people?

Well, I think him wanting more money, taking away resources from people, I think that resonates. Yeah. But I also think you're right. I mean, he wants power. He wants to be a king. He wants to be in charge. I mean, he is in charge, right, of his companies. And so he's used to just dictating orders. I mean, similar... I mean, he's in charge of huge parts of the government, too, apparently. I mean, like Trump is making the decisions. It's what him and Trump have in common, right? They like just...

barking orders at people and having people do what they say. And I think that one of the things that's really, really hard for people to really conceptualize in their brain is how much a billion dollars actually is and how much money Elon Musk actually has, or at least what he's valued at because of his ownership of Tesla stocks. So I think for...

Folks who rely upon government programs, these government agencies that are providing resources for regular folks, like it's hard for them to understand, I think, because it's happening so quickly.

the consequences of what Elon Musk is doing. And I think maybe if, you know, as the strategist, Democrats focused on the impact on people, as opposed to even he wants more money, that would help land the message more effectively. Well, I'm excited to see

how the cabinet meeting goes. You know, in the first one, it was everybody had to talk about how great Mr. Trump was, sir. Remember that in Trump 1? Yes. Yes, I'll never forget it. Do they go around and praise both of them this time? I don't know. I'm waiting with bated breath. Your point about the impact on actual people, on your show, you're doing Collins. You're doing Collins. Like you're hearing from people. You're hearing from real folks. I'm kind of curious what that's like, you know, but it's part of those conversations.

Like you've been posting some clips of people like that, that are suffering real consequences from this. So I, you know, talk about like what you think the opportunity is there and what the real life impact is from folks you're hearing from. Well, right after the election, it was almost like therapy because people were crying and you know, I'm not a therapist. My mother was, but I'm not a therapist. So I was trying to,

Even though I'm also emotional and trying to process and I'm traumatized, I'm trying to create a space for people so that they can just like let it out. And it's really, really helpful. And I think validating for people to hear from other people all over the country who are also feeling the same exact way. Because a lot of people are like in their own homes, like,

I'm losing it. I'm am I going crazy? And then when they hear other people on the radio say exactly the same things they're thinking and feeling, it's so reassuring that you're not the only one that it's like, wait, is Elon Musk running the government? Right. Like, am I am I losing my mind? And for other people who are calling in and being like,

I feel exactly the same way. Like I am so angry. There's a lot of anger. So I think after the hurt of the election kind of dissipated, people are now pissed.

In addition, I had a caller last week call in and say she was one of the CDC employees that lost their job. I mean, it's real for people. This isn't, I mean, when they talk about federal workers as if they're not taxpaying Americans and working people with bills, just like everybody else, it's very strange. This is going to have a profound impact on the economy that we don't even foresee because those federal employees are a part of our economy and they go and shop at businesses and go to restaurants and

you know, they are workers just like everybody else. So if you fire millions of people because you want to,

Pay for your tax cuts. That's going to have an impact in the economy that they're not thinking that through. Elon Musk doesn't care about that, but Trump should. And also they talk about federal workers, government workers, bureaucrats, like it's just some random person on K Street in a suit that's like totally replaceable. I was mentioning this on yesterday's thing. I don't maybe I should start doing callers. I don't know. I pulled this example just out of my ass. Right. I was like, you know, I can imagine if you're an NIH employee.

employee that has expertise in infectious diseases or whatever. And you just got fired because you're a probationary employee. And you've got these Republicans that are like, well, whatever, go to a job fair, find another job. I literally one of our commenters was like, I'm an NIH employee who's a specialist in gene therapy that got fired.

Right. And it's like putting those actual faces on on things. I mean, that is a person that I assume an expert in gene therapy. God love you. We'll be able to find other work because that's like, you know, that kind of specialty. But like when you hear from the people that are that are calling in, like these people have real like expertise that is being lost and they help other people and they have impact on their community. And I do think the ripple effect of that is going to be real.

Right. So it's, there's the economic ripple effect, but then there's also just the, the loss of the expertise to other places, right? Like people, I've been reading reports about people who are in public health programs, basically being like my entire job plan out

the window and what am I going to do? Well, those people are going to go to other parts of the world and they're going to bring their medical expertise and their research to other places that are willing to accept them. In addition, I was reading yesterday, maybe it was a TikTok I saw, it was about a medical conference. It was about people who specifically specialize in like devices for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, right? And

that at this conference, all these people are processing the fact that they're going to lose all of their pathways to employment and research because they're

It's diversity in terms of hearing and because the word diversity was in the language. Oh my God. Right. Like it's actually so stupid. So one of the things that is both good and bad is that they are not thinking anything through. Right. Right. Elon Musk isn't thinking anything through and he has no idea what most of these people in the federal government do. It's the example that they fired all the people guarding the nukes and they were like, oops, our bad, you know, and

Oh, we fired all the people that do bird flu. That seems bad. You know, and so I think that there are going to be unforeseen consequences that are going to make them look foolish. I hope it doesn't hurt too many people before we fix it. But I don't know. I mean, I feel like COVID should have taught us that these people do not think things through. You know, they're going to do the comparative, get rid of the pandemic response unit, and then a pandemic happens.

So they're not competent at all. No, no. Competence is not the key for the current administration. Talking about the Dems, I'm wondering what you think their opportunities are, what their missed opportunity is. I mean, I think that it is pretty...

It's kind of obvious at this point, like the Democrats have struggled and have lost ground with working class voters. Those particularly in the 2016 race was a lot of working class white voters. Everybody focused on, you know, people were taking, you know, going on safaris to diners and Scranton to try to figure out what's going on with working class white voters.

But like in this last election, it was really across the board, right? I know, except for black women, pretty much, but like working class voters of every other demographic, besides black women, went more to Trump than they had, right? Not a majority, but like, you know, started to, he gained ground with them. I'm wondering, like, what you think was the cause of that? And like, what you think Democrats should do about it?

So I don't ever like to look at what happened in 2024 and then say like, this is the problem with Democrats messaging because it was such a weird election cycle, right? You had Kamala Harris come in with a hundred days and try to win a whole election, which nobody's ever done. We've never elected a woman and we've only elected one black person. So it was like,

You have a lot of the odds stacked against you. With that said, though, I think one of the things that Democrats do every single time is take the wrong message from election results. So number one, you lost by 1.5%. So why would you be like, oh, my... To a clown. And you didn't lose by 1.5% to Nikki Haley. You lost by 1.5% to a guy that was like, you know, a felon and a clown. Listen, I absolutely acknowledge that that is true. However, I think that we have to understand that the people that are willing to vote for a clown...

over Kamala Harris are not going to vote for a Democrat. Like there's a lot of people that spend a lot of time trying to win back voters that are never going to vote for a Democrat again.

They're not going to vote for a Democrat again. I think the focus should be on turning out the people that didn't vote at all. The people, the 50 percent of people that were like, I just just doesn't matter to me. Democracy. I don't I just don't really care about that that much. But my eggs are really expensive and I'm very frustrated. But still, I'm not really convinced that I need to participate at all in elections anymore.

to do anything. Like, I'm just going to go over here and do what I'm supposed to do in my day. I'm not... I don't care about politics. I'm not involved at all. And so I don't think Democrats spend enough time trying to reach those people. They spend so much time trying to win back folks that I don't think they're going to ever win back. They are not going to win back people that...

you know, watch all of Trump's rallies through 2016 or in 2024 and weren't offended by any of that, voted for him despite those things, watched him in power for four years, including during COVID, and then voted for him again. It's too hard to win back those people

At the expense of your base. So one of the things that Trump does well is that he's always firing up his base and Democrats are always trying to win the middle as opposed to firing up their own base, which you would be able to capture some of those people who are disengaged because they have the same interests with your base. So I think that it's a matter of what you are prioritizing in your message as opposed to

more strategic thing. And it's been my frustration for like at least 15 years. I have a little bit of a different view. But before I do give my pushback, I want to hear a little more about your view. Like what? How do you think the Democrats could appeal more to the base? I think we're talking mostly about people like black voters didn't vote young voters didn't vote or like really probably the two groups that we're talking about mostly. Like what do you think they could talk about that it would in your view bring more folks from those demographics up? It

It's not even what it's the mediums they're using to talk to people. So the Democrats are like, we have to fix our message. I'm like your message. There's not really, you could tweak it. Sure. But if you're going on cable news and one o'clock in the afternoon, it doesn't matter what you're saying. I don't understand why that's continuing to be the strategy. And I think that there was some criticism by those mainstream media outlets that

That were like, why is Kamala going on? Call her daddy. Well, that's because people listen to that. People watch that. The base of the party that you need to vote actually consumes that. So you want to do more of that and less of the standard traditional thing. You're not eliminating that completely. But I think that there is a very slow process.

evolution, and strategy, media strategy, calm strategy on like, how to actually reach people. I think that we saw some of that in Kamala Harris's 107 day campaign, where you're figuring out that you actually have to do more podcasts, you have to go on TikTok more, you need to do live streams, you need to talk to influencers, like,

You're not sitting down with the noon anchor. You're just not doing that. So part of it is the medium they're actually trying to talk to voters through. And also understanding that the media is not your friend, even if they're the most respected, well-meaning journalist. In my opinion, the media is a filter. It's always been a filter and it's very much a filter right now. If you go back and watch Kamala Harris's interviews from her short campaign, you know, there were interviews where

14 of the 15 questions were a Republican talking point as the premise. Yeah.

So I don't understand. So you can have the best message. And they get no credit for it either. I know it's crazy. It's like CNN will do that interview. Because that will show that we're not balanced. And then they get no credit for MAGA voters for it. And it frustrates people like me who are like, you just wasted all of your time trying to appeal and to tamp down the criticism of the media when you didn't reach a single voter that you needed. Okay, so here's my pushback on what you're saying. Obviously...

I like moderate voters, so we should try to reach them. But I'm going to put them, let's put them aside for a second. Let's put the moderate voters aside for a second. Don't Democrats need to try to reach, like there are two groups I'm thinking of. One is, I was looking at a map yesterday of rural America and like what percentage of them are on Medicaid. And it's like, I don't know, man, couldn't Democrats make, maybe not get a majority, but get some gains among old whites in rural America who need their Medicaid? Couldn't Democrats get some gains back from, if you look at,

like urban neighborhoods, those aren't voters that Democrats can't get. They're people that voted for Democrats their whole life. And then this time, you know, again, small percentages, but meaningful five, 10% in some, in some boroughs in New York, uh,

like Bronx, like moved towards Trump. Like you gotta be able to try to persuade some of those folks to come back. Right. Oh yeah. I actually agree with you. I'm not saying that you're, you're not going to try to do it at all, but I think that one of the things they do every cycle is they're like, let's go on a bus tour to get white working class voters. And I'm like, you do this every time. And you don't think that maybe that's maybe not the answer.

I don't think it's not the answer. Right. Like that's not that's not the answer. And that's not the problem. And also, it's all happening with the backdrop of changing demographics. Right. So even when we say something like rural voters or.

you know, working class voters. Now we have to understand that that does include a large number of black and brown people. Yeah. Democrats actually lost a little ground on rural black voters in Georgia. Key demo. So that's where the bus tour is not the way. But you do have to figure out, and maybe it's the Medicaid message,

I think the social security piece of this is really important because black women in particular, huge recipients of social security benefits. So there are ways and there are messages that work on those constituencies that you absolutely need to be engaged and excited. But I think that they keep doing the same thing over and expecting a different result when they needed to evolve with the demographic shift.

All right. Let's talk about our inner selves. Yes. The inner work dispatch. So, you know, I'm dealing with...

the current Trump 2.0 by doing an unhealthy amount of working and then binge drinking on the weekends. Is that the kind of inner work that you're talking about or do you have any advice for me? No, and no shade to the folks who have chosen those things. I would say that- I'm just trying to be honest about how I'm doing about my self-work. I also, I am doing, I am going to yoga too. I am going to yoga. Yeah, okay. Okay.

Drinking and yoga. Yeah. Is it hot yoga or like sweating it out? Sometimes depends. Okay. Okay. So I don't know if they told you, but I live in Italy.

Now, so I'm doing the second Trump administration very different than the first. The first Trump administration, I was like, all right, I'm in the resistance. I'm out here. I'm doing it. I'm up front. I'm consuming it nonstop. I am working all the time. I am. This is like I live and breathe this time. You're doing eat, pray, love radio.

Well, look, I mean, I can't say that I wasn't inspired by that. But I will say that I came to Italy in 2024. I spent half the year in 2024 in Italy, 90 days, 90 days home, 90 days back, 90 days home. And I have never felt better, mentally, physically, all the things. And it's

because I have just a little bit of distance from some of the daily onslaught. I mean, it's really different here. The way that they are, and I say they sort of generalizing, but the people that I interact with, the way that they approach life and being present and talking to people face-to-face and having those types of interactions. I'm not saying they don't also have some of the same issues that we do, but I think that I have learned a lot about

like making joy and happiness on a daily basis and actually living in the present here. And so the second Trump administration, I decided that I was not going to do what I did the first time. Now, also my mother, uh,

had massive strokes and passed away at the end of 2022. I'm sorry. And thank you. And I'm not going out like that. So I decided that I was going to do something different. And I was going to go where I feel good and where I feel happiness. And I can still do my job and cover what is happening in our country. And I think actually the perspective of being here was

is unique because it's looking crazy from over here. Like, and also when you talk to people here,

They are like, what the hell is wrong with America? And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, I agree, but I really don't know what is wrong. They were universally it wasn't like a debate. They were universally opposed to Trump. Every single person I talked to was like, you guys aren't going to vote for Trump again, are you? Which is so weird because Melania is kind of. Yeah, but it's like a different story. Talk to regular folks.

And when you talk to regular folks, the people that I interacted with, I mean, literally the person, this is a true story. When I went to print my absentee ballot, the man who printed my absentee ballot spoke no English and he handed it to me and he said, no Trump. That's all he said. He didn't speak any English at all, but he handed me my absentee ballot and was like, no Trump. Don't get him in trouble. Eagle Ed Martin's coming for him. No one will know who it is. But I think that

Here, it's like regular ordinary folks are looking at us like, what are you guys doing? And also, I think it's just a different way of life and sort of approaching your everyday life and living in the moment in a little bit of a different way. I mean, like my dad came to visit during my first trip and we were walking around and he was like,

I understand why you like it here because the energy, it's a vibe. I mean, when I go home to the United States, I'm mostly staying in Virginia when I'm there and it's an energy thing. People are angry. People are anxious. They're just, they're all like pumped up. Like, and that's when you come here, it's not like that. I mean, I'm in Sicily, so it's very much not like that. Like in Sicily, people are angry.

chilling like there's a man across the street putting the net out fishing right right now well i don't have that i moved to new orleans which is the closest we can do in america to that there's nobody out there with nets fishing but we are getting into we are in parade season how's your time okay it's improving

I'll say that. Okay. I do take lessons and I'm improving. One of my besties did your same thing. It's so weird that Italian is a spot. She, I get to see her this weekend. So I'm so excited. She's coming back to America, but she went, she moved to our Pina. Okay. Like her ancestral land. And like, just did what you did was there. Like I was going to be there for six months.

met a winemaker, married a winemaker, lives in rural Italy now. So I need to meet a winemaker. Yeah, so you need to meet a winemaker. But she said a lot of the same things that you're saying. So there is something to...

to the mindset. Yeah. So for people that are stuck in America, do you have any inner, inner mind advice for them? Every single day at the end of my show, I tell all of the listeners to do something in their day that sparks joy. And I don't mean tidy up like, you know, Marie Kondo, no shade, right? I mean, actually like be intentional about trying to make your day a good day and

And don't sit around and scroll through news. Like, what are you doing? Stop doing that. Don't do that. You're not going to be able to make Trump or Elon Musk do something different just because you rage tweeted today. Like, do not do that. So there is a time and place to engage in activism. And then you also want to live your life.

Because previous generations who had to go through fights like the one we're going through right now, I mean, there is a famous picture of Martin Luther King dancing, right? Like you do have to also live. And if you take care of your mental health, you are better able to do the things that are necessary activism wise, right? Like if you're a complete mess and you're

All over the place. You're not going to be effective. Actually, in other ways, like if you're angry, if you're so consumed by anger. Yeah. Then you're not, you're not gonna be able to convince anybody. And frankly, you might, you might turn people off. Exactly. And hurt and harm yourself. Exactly. Don't, don't do that. And don't, don't sit in just scroll endlessly through the news. Do not do that. I need everybody. I mean, I started watching shows with subtitles specifically because I

I couldn't stop scrolling. I mean, they built it to be addicting, and it is. But I started watching shows with subtitles, and that was the way that I broke my phone addiction. That's a good piece of advice. I did notice I looked at my phone less during Squid Game. All right. And Nora. Nora, I watched Nora. It was, again, so great. Yeah.

Nora's so great. I don't know if you haven't watched it yet. Go get it. No, I have to watch that. I'm now addicted to the show Paradise. Okay. I don't know. That's my new addiction. All right. I'll look it up. Zerlina Maxwell, thank you so much. Enjoy Sicily. I thought I was bragging on everybody that it's Mardi Gras coming up here, but you're in Sicily, so a little gel. And we'll do an update about our inner life and the outer life, both sometime in a few months. Thank you for having me. All right. We'll see you soon. Zerlina Maxwell, thanks again to Ruben Gallego.

We'll see everybody back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. Peace.

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The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.